


happy birthday dean winchester

by psalms



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Dean Winchester, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28959216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psalms/pseuds/psalms
Summary: canon divergent 42nd birthday for deano, because he deserved a happier ending ❤️
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 92





	happy birthday dean winchester

The bunker was still, Sam and Eileen were...somewhere, and currently they didn’t have any visitors. No guests, no wayward hunters, or any friends stopping by to catch their breath. Not even family. It was, for once, just Dean, his broken leg, and a case of beer that was mostly empties now. 

“Happy fuckin’ birthday to me,” the words weren’t slurred, even though he felt the weight and warmth of alcohol resting heavy on his tongue. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d acknowledged his own birthday, but in the solitude of the bunker it felt right to at least say the words aloud.

The hovered above him as he contemplated beer four - five, maybe - and wondered if it was time to hit the harder stuff. An uncomfortable lump had begun to form somewhere above his heart. He pushed out of the chair, half-drunk off the now warm beers Dean heaved himself upward and swayed on his feet for a beat. The main room of the bunk swum before his eyes before he shut them, steadying himself.

He felt stale, sore, and exhausted. Which meant that it was definitely time to switch to something harder. The path to his room was familiar and before he knew it tired hands pulled drawers open until the glass of an unfinished bottle of bourbon he’d opened the other night was welcome against his palm. 

Not bothering to find a glass he took the bottle to his bed, the cap flicked off to the side with a quiet clatter. The cool of the liquor was crystalline after a haze of lukewarm beers. One hand holding the bottle steady he adjusted his pillow behind him and settled down, eyes staring unseeingly straight ahead.

This was kind of pathetic, even for him, wasn’t it? Getting drunk, alone, on your birthday. Another small pull of the bourbon quieted those thoughts, even if it didn’t fully dull the ache of too many questions he never let himself ponder. The bunker was too quiet, though, and Dean wasn’t sure even if he put music on and cranked it as loud as it could go it would drum out the thunder in his head.

How old was he? 

Did he count the years in hell, or not? Does he count the one in purgatory? How about the hundred days he lived and died - were those a part of this life? He ran his free, rough hewn, hand - was this even his original hand - over his face. His breath in soft tatters. Birthdays in the past had been busy, world’s were ending, people were dying, but now here he was. Still. Everything was...okay. It was, there was no crisis at hand. Just busywork, clean up jobs, every day tasks that called people away.

Hell he wasn’t even sure if Sam and Eileen were even on a hunt, maybe they’d just taken a weekend away to breathe. It had to be nice, having someone to breathe with. Having a life with someone.

All Dean had was a life unworthy of any fanfare. Unworthy of a text from Jack or Sam or....

The lump was back this time decidedly higher, threatened to cut off his air and made the backs of his eyes burn.

More bourbon, definitely...definitely more bourbon.

But even the bright burn of warming liquor didn’t stop the way the room was beginning to melt. Or the warm trails that had begun to fall down his face. Was it even his face? He’d only been born to be a fucking meatsuit for an angel. Fucking angels, fucking destiny and fate and - 

The sob that ripped out of him breaks the silence, and for a long time there is only unsteady, heaving, gasping breaths. They fill up the room, and go on for long enough that the bourbon is on his bedside table and both hands are holding his face. It is his, no matter who’s inhabited it, how many times it has died, this is his. He is his. 

He only belongs to himself.

He’s always belonged to himself, an island of one. Everyone always leaves, Sam included. Hell Sam’s got a life of his own, and is happy. He’s got the hunter network running as nicely as Baby’s engine. And Dean? 

Dean’s got a splotchy face long after his tears slow to a stop. He’s in the midst of taking a shuddering, wet breath, when off in the distance there’s the sound of a door shutting. 

Every muscle in his body tenses, his hand half reached under his pillow for the gun stashed there, before he can rationalize to his foggy brain it’s just some hunter, probably. He listens, ears straining, as distantly familiar footsteps draw nearer. The tears have dried on his face, the skin stiff and uncomfortable, but he barely dares to breathe let alone move.

A shadow pauses before his door, as it stealing itself, before the sound of a doorknob and 

“Oh,” Cas’ face slowly comes into focus. 

Cas’ face...Dean stands too quickly and mostly falls off of his bed. He catches himself with one arm, staring wide-eyed as Cas comes closer. As Cas’ warm, familiar, hands rest on his shoulder. As Cas’ impossibly blue eyes look over his face with concern. “Dean,” and that’s definitely Cas’ voice. Deep and rough like tires over gravel and Dean can feel the threat of tears returning as he shakes his head.

Because it can’t be Cas. 

“You’re dead,” the words take far too much effort to form. The not-Cas-Cas’ face crumples, softens, looks at him in that makes the tears come out harder. “Christ I need to stop drinking,” he pulls shaking hands to press into his eyes, willing whatever drunken vision away. But the warm weight of a second hand comes to cup his face, and the sound of fabric crinkling and knees resting on concrete are enough to tell him the not-Cas-Cas isn’t going away anywhere soon.

The soft motion of a thumb across his cheek is enough to ease some of the tension away, and maybe he can just pretend. No one else is around, he can be allowed this? A drunken dream, too good to be true, and lets his head rest heavier on the palm there. His hands falling from his eyes to rest between his legs. 

“You could’ve had me,” the words are so quiet, “I wish you would’ve.” How many times has he admitted these words in his dreams? In prayers that went unanswered? “Too fucking chicken shit to ever do anything, too afraid I’d fuck it up,” the words spill out of him faster and faster. “One good thing, the one good thing this life gave to me was you, but I know me, I fuck everything up. I don’t know how to keep people, only how to push ‘em away and I couldn’t....”

Couldn’t lose Cas like that, in a permanent way, but he did anyways. In the end silence wasn’t salvation, it was just as damning as any words could’ve been. 

“Dean,” and that’s enough to draw his eyes back open. And there’s Cas, as he should be, weary, wary, with that softest trace of hope. “I-I knew,” but the words halt and he can see the way the muscles in this vision of Cas clench. The way blue eyes shift around for a moment, searching for the right words to say. In his dream Cas would surge forward and cover him in kisses. Sloppy and sappy and feeling like everything he’d wanted.

This Cas seems uncertain, “I could feel the way you felt, but you’re so-so complex. I didn’t wish to assume, didn’t want to...hope.” Each words feels like it’s been pulled, painfully, from some deep place. “Dean, please,” and the hand on his cheek tilting his face upwards. “Look at me,” blue eyes pleading as much as the words.

Taking in a steadying breath Dean does, and all he sees is Cas. The open longing and desperation on his face. “Jack,” the words drift over Dean like warm waves, “brought me back from the empty. I wasn’t right, but your prayers...they helped. Jack, Mary, Charlie even they helped me. I would have come back sooner, but -”

Whatever further words Cas might’ve said were muffled as Dean surged forward, arms wrapping around the familiar expanse of the angels back. Hands soothed down his back, a face pressing into his hair, and surely there are words being spoken but Dean can’t hear them. All he can hear is the thud of two pulses, their bodies melded together as close as they can be. A warmth, completely unrelated to the alcohol, surges through his body. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Cas’ voice finally breaks through, “I used my grace to sober you. I wanted you to see this wasn’t,” but again words are interrupted. This time by a suddenly, blisteringly, sober Dean leaning and pressing his lips against Cas’ stupid, eternally, chapped ones.

The sag of relief brings Cas somehow closer to him, and they sit there, Cas knelt between Dean’s knees, kissing until they’re out of breath. Until Cas leans back to press his forehead against Dean’s, both of their breathing uneven and eyes shut. Dean lets his hands slowly drag down from shoulder blade to hips and shifts to rest his head upon one of Cas’ shoulders.

The hand that begins to comb through his hair, soothing away any doubt, any fear. “They kept telling me I could go back when I was ready,” the words break the silence, but Dean doesn’t move and neither does Cas. The only motion is the hand through his hair, “and I never knew.... I didn’t know how to tell when I was ready, but then I remembered.” The hand in his hair pulls slightly, just enough to shift Dean back so Cas can look him full in his face again. 

“January 24th, 1979,” the smile on Cas’ face is sun-bright and warms Dean right to his core. “I was given a gift I didn’t fully understand that day, and I figured it would only be fair if...if I returned the gesture.” Cas’ lips are warm against his forehead, lingering for a beat too long before pulling away again. “Happy birthday, Dean, I hope this is the first of many you’ll let me celebrate with you.”

Dean answers the only way he can, by pressing another kiss against Cas’ lips, and pulling him closer.


End file.
